Another one from my Leyland days, if I remember right we borrowed 4 of these off Leyland Trucks own fleet up in Lancs, there was a big Motor Show on somewhere & they obviously thought these looked better than our old Buffalo’s! What I do remember clearly is that I had just passed my Class 3 aged 18, so I could drive Tractors bob-tail, & I bought one of them back to Cowley from Leyland! I was still living at home down Gipsy Lane, Headington so I took it home on the way back to Cowley to show my old man!
This was a 6 wheeler double skip-loader, we had 2 4 wheeler skip-loaders too. this one was driven by Derek Dixon, you can just see to the left our 6 wheeler St tanker this was driven by Merv Roberts, we also had a 4 wheeler st tanker that was driven by Bob Venn! I passed my Class 2 test using the 6 wheeler skip wagon.
This pic was taken somewhere in Italy but I can’t remember where, I was 18 so its about 30 years ago! (shouldn’t have put that, I’ve scared myself now!) We were on our way to Rome with 2 Mini Metro’s in the back, we were doing a late stint & had just stopped for something to eat before we carried on, & Dennis jumped out & took this pic. Not a very good photo but they all bring the memories flooding back!
One of my weeks working my holidays on the Agency (before digi-tachs knocked it on the head) to get some extra dosh to take the wife & kids abroad! I always liked the old ERFs, preferably with the Twin-Splitter box, bloody good workhorses & a decent cab too!
Here you go Steve, we were talking about him today, Duncan Colwell, you’ll have to take my word for it but this is him! Pic was took in July 85, in a little village we were weekended in just outside Vienna, Austria. This was Sunday morning & Dunc’ was sleeping off a couple of Baby-cham’s we had had the night before in the local Bar/Restaurant, we used what we drunk on Sat’ night to wash down what we had drunk from 12 lunchtime when we parked up! Hard graft the Removals, certainly was working for Ray, but a good giggle with a great crowd of blokes! Whatever happened to working hard & playing hard?
Never drove for them myself despite living half a mile down the road from their yard in Audlett Drive, Abingdon, Abingdon Carpets.
Done a bit for this bunch from Chalgrove, best bit about this job was the Club just down the road from the yard that sold good cheap Ale, & by the left after driving this old chugger for a day you needed a drink! But to be fair she had an old Deutz engine in her & she did go once you got her wound up, there wasn’t a lot came past once she heard last orders called!
Just to show anyone that’s interested one of our wagons delivering. This is a pressure delivery wagon, its not rocket science, you basically have a pressure build up system on the tank to build your tank pressure higher than the tank you are going to fill! You can see on the nearside running alongside the tank a vapouriser, this is a Liquid Oxygen tanker, in its liquid form in the tanker it is about -200 degrees, bit nippy, hence our big thick gloves etc cos if it touches you the burns can be horrendous! Liquid is released into the bottom of the vapouriser, as it goes up through the fins it turns to vapour which goes back into the top of the tank to build up the inner-vessel pressure to push the load out! As the day goes on & you do more drops the liquid level obviously drops, this leaves more ullage space in the top of the tank, so building up the pressure then takes longer, which is a pain if your last couple of drops are into high pressure tanks! All our tankers at Didcot are now pumpers which although being noisier are much quicker.
Hi chris , nice to meet you again , bloody good chat
Loved sseing your dads old trucks , also the habitat L171EBW was Bernard woodward from Radley he had it from new ,he retired when the truck was two years old and he hed clocked 50 years on Brs , so he had probley worked with your dad when he worked on Brs , also I remeber the ERF it was on rental . 
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What happened to cannons, Andrew? Heard they went bust but also they’d just had enough with transport and kept warehouses.
Thankyou for the Cannon pictures , Sure you must know adr , chris .
Muckaway:
What happened to cannons, Andrew? Heard they went bust but also they’d just had enough with transport and kept warehouses.
hi,not sure what happened to em in the end i heard same as you just a bit of warehousing/packing but nothing like it was.
JAKEY:
Thankyou for the Cannon pictures , Sure you must know adr , chris .
Hi,got plenty more where they come from just got to get round to scanning them on,yes i do know chris i was just the yard boy when he started & i,m sure he,s older than he say,s he is